Edition Wars: Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition in the works

Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and its parent company Hasbro have announced that work has begun on the 5th edition of the table top role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. This should come as no surprise to seasoned veterans of the rule set, since the controversial 4th edition caused many of you to abandon the Forgotten Realms in search of others wonders to explore. The question on everyone’s mind is whether or not WotC will be able to finally release a product that appeals to all demographics, while at the same time reversing what has been a dismal record of supporting supplemental features for players. We have word from our sources that the 5th edition will be a mixed bag with the return of Monte Cook to the writing staff in an effort to recapture the hearts of the former faithful.

What caused the mass exodus of long-term fans was the way that WotC approached the 4th edition of the game. After doing extensive studies about its player base, Hasbro discovered that most of its current players and potential customers that it wanted to capture were playing the online game World of Warcraft (not surprising). In an effort to give gamers what they wanted, it created a balanced, mechanics-based approach to the game that, in my opinion, is an excellent rule set. It made it easier for players just starting out and gave Dungeon Masters a good toolbox to frame their adventures with.

The major complaint from the hard-core players was that WotC took all the role-playing out of the game in exchange for the slick mechanics it had come up with. The problem with this argument is that role-playing is an arbitrary event, there are no numbers or statistics that control the “personalities” of the characters being portrayed in a group. The more accurate complaint from these players is that they mourned the loss of “fluff” that allowed them to immerse themselves into the game world with little effort. Whether or not this is a result of becoming too comfortable and set in certain mindset is debatable. The fact is that old-school D&D players abandoned the title in droves, opting to head to Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder RPG that is built on the Open Gaming License instead.

Whether players like to admit it or not, Hasbro is a business. In my experience gamers like to feel like the companies behind the titles they play really and truly care about them in some way. This is what has lead to the fact that WotC has been hemorrhaging money since no one is buying it books or supplements for the 4th edition anymore. It hopes that by bringing Monte Cook back, it can prove to the faithful that it is indeed returning to the “golden age” of D&D, which is seen to be the 3rd edition that Cook helped to design.

As mentioned above, our source says that this could be a mixed bag. While many players are fans of Cook’s work, some are apprehensive because of his plodding sense of remaining true to the game in its original form. No matter what your opinion is of Cook’s work, the writing is on the wall that WotC is seeking to recapture the hearts and minds of its former core audience by bringing one of the lauded architects of arguably the best rule set created for the game.

The downside to this announcement is that customers who have shelled out major cash for the 4th edition of the game are going to find themselves in unsupported territory, making their investments null and void. Hopefully WotC will find a way to soften the blow.